Many modern appliances, consumer devices, and other devices include embedded systems that are configured to perform one or more dedicated functions. However, most embedded systems of such devices do not include networking capabilities, role based access control capabilities, remote interface capabilities, remote control capabilities, or related capabilities. Designing such functionality into an embedded system, designing application programming interfaces (APIs) for accessing such functionality, designing web services capable of communicating with and controlling the embedded system via this added functionality, and designing applications for taking advantage of this functionality can consume considerable resources of the device manufacturer.
As the support of devices with embedded systems has gained adoption, the fragmentation of services provided by networking providers for these devices has dramatically increased. For example “vertical” providers may limit their support to a single device type. Similarly, “horizontal” providers may support multiple devices but require proprietary interface protocols. A device manufacturer that would like to provide networking access to their device using more than a single networking platform may be faced with having to support multiple applications and/or systems, each with its own interface requirements. This can place a heavy burden on a manufacturer to expend significant resources in order to support connectivity via a variety of networking platforms and third-party services.